What Bush Never Understood In Iraq

When I heard that George Bush was going into Iraq six years ago, a story I was told long ago kept repeating itself in my head. I kept wishing I could tell it to Mssrs Bush, Cheney and whoever wanted to send troops in. It’s applicable to Afghanistan and Pakistan now—so I’ll write it.
A good Egyptian friend of mine was descended from the Pasha of Upper Egypt under the old Turkish Empire. The family had lost its position and much of its wealth—although they still lived in a 300 room house fully staffed with slaves.
When his father died, about 50 years ago, his uncle took over their remaining land, feeling there was nothing two teenage boys could do to stop him. The uncle was constantly guarded by armed slaves and body guards and always carried a gun himself. He seemed impregnable.
One family festival the uncle sat in splendor—guarded by his armed retinue, the local law enforcement officials, with his own rifle across his lap. My friend’s seventeen-year-old brother approached. “Salaam,” he bowed, saluting with his arms as he did so.
He was wearing an Arab robe with long sleeves. Out of one of the sleeves came a knife, moving so rapidly that no one saw it until it had gone deep into the uncle, bounced back out, and fallen to the floor. The uncle joined the knife, dead. No one had time to react.
The brother was arrested for murder. At the trial, all the witnesses had to admit they had never seen the knife anywhere near the brother. They had first seen it after it landed on the floor, bloody. No one could tie it to the young man.
The judge called him up before the bar. “Sir,” said the judge, “there is no witness to convict you; you are free to go.”
My friend’s brother pulled himself erect and glared at the judge. “Had anyone ELSE killed MY uncle, I should have killed him!”
He was convicted out of his own mouth and served several years in prison.
There are thousands of stories like that, over the millennia that the Lex Talionis has existed. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, a duty and an obligation to take vengeance against anyone who harms you or yours. “I and my brother against my cousin,” goes the Arab proverb; “I and my cousin against the world.”
Ancient conquerors in that part of the world understood the mentality very well. That is why they killed so widely and so thoroughly. Every surviving brother, cousin or nephew was a likely instrument of revenge—and had to be viewed as such.
A war with Arabs is one in which there really are no civilians. Every survivor is a likely combatant. You must either stay out or go in and do a very thorough job. Suicide killings in that part of the world, whether for vengeance or policy, are a thousand years old.
We get the very name “assassin” from that part of the world—where a member of this sect would infiltrate an enemy’s court, work faithfully for years, rise in the ranks and then, at a signal, kill the enemy ruler. That’s a suicidal mole with sharp teeth.
The Crusaders would, from time to time, ally themselves with the assassins and use their good offices to eliminate Christian and Muslim competition. After a few decades the Crusaders had a fairly good idea of what they were up against—and how to play the Arab factions off against each other.
It took the Arabs two hundred years to get rid of their wily Christian adversaries—hugely outnumbered but constantly bouncing from one Arab ally to the next. The only key to survival was never to expect permanent friendship, always to be ready to jump to the next temporary alliance.
Cheney and Bush never even began to realize this. I only hope the apparently more pragmatic Obama will understand this. We are up against a mentality that says, religiously and relationally, “I may kill my uncle (or ruler or official), but if you touch him, I will avenge him.”
That’s a tough enemy to deal with. You have to think a long time before you figure out just how to fight him or negotiate with him. Above all, you have to think.
That was the part we left out of the Iraq equation—until about last year or so. (And we have to remember that this can be so transient.) Let’s see if we get it right in Afghanistan.
A discouraging note: Alexander the Great, who wasn’t afraid to try to conquer just about anybody, didn’t try in Afghanistan. He backed out of the country and built a wall of forts along the border to keep them away from him. He didn’t try to fight on their turf.
The remains of those forts still stand along the border—just as a reminder.
The British tried in the 1840s and lost a whole army. The Russians tried in 1980 and lost their entire empire. “I and my brother against my cousin; I and my cousin … .”
We’ll talk some more about this mysterious and dangerous part of the world.